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crippytay 's review for:
Transcendent Kingdom
by Yaa Gyasi
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
This is the first book I've read by Yaa Gyasi, and I really liked it. I can't wait to read Homegoing. I was intrigued by the story of this one, and had heard this author was good so I picked it up last year at a book store.
To be honest, in the beginning I was thinking the story of religion and science would feel like a trope, cheesey and that I wouldn't really relate. There were too many things going on in the story of addiction and depression and religion and science. But it worked. It was soft and reverent. And I find myself in a similar headspace as I've stepped away from religion. So much of the storyline with her mother was validating and hard to read as I've had similar experiences with my mother.
Most of the things I highlighted were thoughts about religion and things that hit home - this idea that everyone outside of the religion is damned. Or that church is repressive - nothing but shame inducing, telling you to be perfect, but forgetting to tell you that it's also impossible.
Or her mother: "...this false aloneness, was so much worse than any loneliness I had ever felt before. Knowing that my mother was in the house, knowing that she couldn't, wouldn't, get out of the bed to be near me, to help me in my sadness, made me angry and then my anger made me feel guilty, and so on and so on, in a terrible loop."
I sort of love how, at the end of the book nothing is solved. It's all just been put out there, but the whole point is that it doesn't have to be answered.
To be honest, in the beginning I was thinking the story of religion and science would feel like a trope, cheesey and that I wouldn't really relate. There were too many things going on in the story of addiction and depression and religion and science. But it worked. It was soft and reverent. And I find myself in a similar headspace as I've stepped away from religion. So much of the storyline with her mother was validating and hard to read as I've had similar experiences with my mother.
Most of the things I highlighted were thoughts about religion and things that hit home - this idea that everyone outside of the religion is damned. Or that church is repressive - nothing but shame inducing, telling you to be perfect, but forgetting to tell you that it's also impossible.
Or her mother: "...this false aloneness, was so much worse than any loneliness I had ever felt before. Knowing that my mother was in the house, knowing that she couldn't, wouldn't, get out of the bed to be near me, to help me in my sadness, made me angry and then my anger made me feel guilty, and so on and so on, in a terrible loop."
I sort of love how, at the end of the book nothing is solved. It's all just been put out there, but the whole point is that it doesn't have to be answered.